


Maybe

by rapgodyoungjae



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band), TWICE (Band)
Genre: Crack, F/M, crackship, idolverse, seventwice, svtwice, twiceteen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-03
Updated: 2016-06-03
Packaged: 2018-07-11 22:50:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,299
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7073689
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rapgodyoungjae/pseuds/rapgodyoungjae
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Being around her is hard.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Maybe

**Author's Note:**

> Woozi and Jihoon are used interchangeably~

The first time they meet is when the girls come to the dorm.

Jun and Minghao are friends with one of the Twice members, Tzuyu, or so he’s told. He’d raised his suspicions about that to Seungcheol, but in typical optimistic Seungcheol fashion he’d heard _let’s wait and see for ourselves_ on the matter. 

The dorm becomes immaculate in the day approaching the girls’ arrival. Truly, he’s never seen his members clean as much as now. The girls arrive and mostly cling to one another, aside from Tzuyu, Jihyo and Chaeyoung who have met everyone before. Woozi hangs back, allowing the other guys to introduce themselves, until Seungcheol and Dokyeom pull him to the front.

“This is our Woozi. Don’t let his looks deceive you, he’s... hmm, how should I say? Surly?” Seungcheol says, and Woozi hits him. Seungcheol looks at the girls as if to say _see what I mean?_

He’s off to a great start.

//

They’re all stunning. He’d expected it; they’re idols, but even their pretty staff noonas were nothing in comparison to this. On screen they were beautiful but it didn’t do them justice for real life.

There’s much bowing and chatting and soon enough everyone’s sitting down for dinner. He’s sitting between two girls and wonders if this is some kind of cruel joke or a misguided attempt at kindness on the part of his group members.

Woozi puts on his stone face with the girls he works with but he finds himself undeniably flustered here. He arm keeps brushing against Sana’s and he grows more awkward with each time. She’s _just_ pretty, and that’s _not_ intimidating, he tells himself in vain.

//

“Hellooooo,” Sana enters his production room, arms full. She stops short when her eyes land on Jihoon, her happy expression dropping.

“Oh, I’m sorry, I guess I’m in the wrong place,” she says in apology and vexation, biting her lip. He wishes she wouldn’t.

“It’s okay,” he says. “Do you need help with all of that?”

“Oh, this?” Sana says looking down at the things she’s holding. “Oh, it’s nothing. Don’t mind me,” she says, exiting his room, taking great pains not to drop anything as she shuts the door.

It clearly isn’t nothing, but he wonders why she so plainly doesn’t want him to go wherever she’s headed.

 

“Sana, I need to hear sadness in your voice. Right now it’s too boring,” Jihoon says over the speaker.

They’re recording now; she’s featuring on a track with Seungkwan for a duet on their next album. The song is about melancholy over a breakup, and he knows Sana can do it; it’s why he pushed for her to be the featured artist in the production meeting months ago.

She nods slowly while looking at him, pursing her lips and twisting her hands together.

They do it many more times, and it’s late into the night when recording ends. It’s been a long, exhausting day.

Jihoon packs up, taking his time and humming to the song he’s playing as he does; there’s no urgency now. He exits the room, and he stops in his tracks at the sight before him. Sana is lying back on the waiting room couch, tears streaking her face. She hastily wipes at her cheeks, standing, just as Jihoon rips his headphones out.

“Sorry, Jihoon-ah. I just—I…” She’s flustered, at a loss for words.

“It’s okay, Sana. I know I can be hard to work with,” he admits.

She stops in her tracks and her mouth hangs open, lips parted ever so slightly at his admission. She visibly steels herself, quietly angry.

“Why are you like this, Jihoon-ah?” she asks, voice soft and tempered, tears gathering at the bottom of her eyes.

“Sana, I… I don’t know."

 

They don’t see one another for three weeks. Sana left without saying goodbye that night, and Jihoon felt that tight ball of emotion in his chest like he was going to cry but never did. They hadn’t talked much before and it became easy to write off not saying anything on that and on their schedules, but with each passing day his guilt grew. Twice and specifically Sana were everywhere these days, and he knew that meant she probably never slept, her days—possibly even 24 hour days—marching on endlessly without relent.

So he called her.

The phone is ringing and he must be crazy to be doing this. He pulled up her contact, thinking about everything he had said to her last time and how it must’ve been all brusqueness and poor excuses, and knowing Sana she internalized it anyway. He’d pressed call before he could convince himself not to.

“Hello?” Sana’s light voice comes over the line. He’s surprised she answered, and caught off guard without anything prepared to say. 

“You’re probably busy, but can you meet up tonight?”

 

It’s 3am. Schedules are ending early for her, it seems. Jihoon waits outside for her, sitting on a bench. He feels pathetic, stripped bare, but he did it to his own damn self so he forces himself to languish in it.

He hears her shoes snapping on the ground and she clears her throat, a soft but vibrant noise, before he looks up. Her hair is pinned atop her head and she looks more concerned than angry.

“Let’s go,” he says as he stands, taking her by the arm.

//

The river at night time is quiet. Woozi doesn’t say much and Sana chatters about the last few weeks to fill the void. She agreed to meet him, so maybe she isn’t mad after all.

“Jihoon-ah, what’s going on?” Sana eventually says, stopping in front of him and forcing him to look up from the path ahead. “You called me out but you’re hardly saying anything at all? And last time you were so unkind. I almost didn’t come.” She hesitates. “I don’t get it.”

Woozi kicks at the dirt, looking up to meet her eyes. He wants to say that she should be better in recording. He wants to say that she shouldn’t have answered the phone, and she shouldn’t have come here, because he is angry, and he was and is taking it out on her, and he doesn’t know how to say it all because he can’t address why it is that he feels like this. There’s too much and it’s too embarrassing and he shouldn’t complain.

“I’m sorry Sana. I was wrong.” He says. “I know that probably doesn’t mean much to you, but I don’t say it often.”

She is silent, turning away from him and walking towards the railing where she rests her elbows, looking out on the river.

“Am I supposed to feel honored that you apologized for being mean?” Sana says with a quiet determination.

He’s taken aback by this. For all of her soft demeanor and mannerisms, she surprises him with her fortitude.

“I know producers can say things like that, but Jihoon-ah, I thought that we were friends. If you wanted me to be better then you didn’t have to say it so roughly.”

Sana’s quiet, overlooking the river for some time. Jihoon _knows_ that she’s right, but struggles with being angry that she _is_ so right about him. He wants to say unkind things to her, but ultimately it it’s would be a projection of how he feels about himself. Again. And he would be hurting her because he’s a coward, again.

“I’m sorry for hurting you.” Jihoon says, looking out at the lights reflecting across the water. “I want us to be friends. I didn’t realize that what I was saying at the time came across that way. I’m sorry for being inconsiderate.”

It’s difficult for him to admit. He knows he probably should’ve said this to his group members many times over, but hasn’t even once. Apologies don’t come easy for Lee Jihoon. He grips the railing tighter.

“I shouldn’t take things out on you.”

“You shouldn’t take things out on anyone, Jihoon-ah,” she places a hand softly on his back. “You should talk about it.”

Jihoon chortles.

“Sana, I’m from Busan,” he says, as though that should be explanation enough.

//

They’re at an even keel now. From what Jihoon can tell, Sana hasn’t confided in anyone about what happened between them. It’s only an apology, but his members would go wild if they knew he’d apologized for being too harsh in the recording studio. Jihoon is notorious for holding nothing back and making no apologies for it.

He sends her a clip of his latest song. An olive branch. It’s his first time sending her such a thing and he presses _send_ before he can think if it’s weird of him to ask her opinion on it.

She messages him back happily using more emojis in one message than he’s ever used in his life. Jihoon feels a blooming happiness in his chest, but chastises himself, and reminds himself not to get his hopes up.

//

 _Come out tonight_ he messages her a few weeks later, and he’s sure it’s an exercise in futility.

But she does join him. He downs an entire beer before she gets there, and Wonwoo gives him a questioning look but doesn’t press it further when Jihoon says _aish_ and pushes Wonwoo’s own beer towards him.

Sana brings her groupmate Mina along and they join Jihoon, Wonwoo and Hoshi. Hoshi can’t stop fumbling around Mina, and it provides Jihoon with a welcome distraction from his own nerves.

The waitress places glasses in front of Sana and Mina.

“Oh, thank you, but we didn’t order this,” Sana says politely.

The waitress gestures towards Woozi, who nods his head and lifts his finger in a _that’s me_ gesture.

“Oh, thank you Jihoon-ah,” Sana bows towards him.

“Thank you Jihoon-ssi,” Mina bows as well.

“Jihoon-oppa is fine.” He says to Mina, who nods towards him and takes a sip of her drink.

//

Later in the night Jihoon has managed to nudge Hoshi into playing darts with Mina. He made to teach her in the beginning but now the student has become the master, and they’re making some sort of bet by the looks of it.

“It’s good to see Hoshi-ya enjoying himself. He’s too hard on himself, these days,” Woozi comments to Sana, who looks over to see Hoshi and Mina.

“Is he working on a special project?” Sana asks.

“Aniyo, it’s choreographing like normal. There’s always the pressure to come up with something to top what he last did,” Jihoon says.

“Oh, it must be hard,” Sana nods ardently.

“It is. Ah, but you wouldn’t know,” Woozi replies.

“Ey?” She tilts her head questioningly. Just then Wonwoo slides back into his seat, derailing the conversation from Sana asking just exactly what Jihoon meant by that.

//

It’s only later when Wonwoo has to take a call that she gets an opportunity to ask Jihoon about it. She knows she should probably just ignore it, but she can’t seem to shake off the implications of what he said.

“Jihoon-ah, what were you trying to say earlier about how I wouldn’t know what it’s like to deal with pressure?” Sana asks, tracing her finger around the rim of her glass.

Woozi sighs, looking up at the ceiling.

“Don’t push it, Sana,” he says dismissively, taking a long drag from his drink.

“Don’t push what, exactly?” She asks, leaning forward.

“Sana, you just don’t know what it’s like. How could you? You’re just a—“ he stops short, catching himself. She stares at him, and he can see the disappointment and frustration overtake her features the longer he doesn’t continue or correct himself.

“What, Woozi? What am I? Just a girl? Stupid? Foreign?” she huffs, glaring at him. All he can do is gape at her, like an idiotic koi fish. His ability to speak feels stunted, because hearing it from her sounds wrong, an inelegant version of what he was thinking, another degree less composed from what he was going to say. “You know what, Jihoon-ah? I don’t want to hear the answer,” she says after he is silent for too long. She gathers her things and stands.

“Wait, Sana, I—,” he stutters over his words. Sana makes her way over to Mina and whispers something in her ear, and the two girls begin to leave.

“Sana, don’t—," he says, catching her by the wrist on her way to the door.

“Jihoon-ah. Honestly. Was I wrong?” her words, full of disappointment and sadness, hit him like a slap in the face. She’s not. He’s mad at himself for thinking it but it’s true. She pulls her wrist from his slackened grip and makes her way out of the restaurant and into the drizzle that awaits outside.

 

Sana vacillates between thinking she had been too dramatic and being livid over some of the comments Jihoon had made to her over the course of their friendship. For the most part he was sweet and thoughtful and did caring things without being asked or wanting recognition, but sometimes he was utterly infuriating and frustrating and said things that were downright insulting to her.

It’s been a week since they last spoke when there comes a knock at her bedroom door.

“Sana-unnie, Jihoon-oppa is here,” Tzuyu says through the door.

Christ. He’s in her dorm. She hasn’t decided how she feels but there’s no escape.

“Send him in,” Sana says, to her group members’ surprise she’s sure.

Her face is fixed in a neutral expression when he arrives. She sits back down on her bed, and side-eyes him when he sits next to her.

“Sana, the other night, I didn’t mean to insult you,” he begins, his hands shoved in his coat pockets

“That’s funny because I felt pretty insulted,” she replies bitterly.

“Sana, the reason I said what I did is because… god, why is this so hard to admit,” Woozi tilts his head back, collecting his thoughts. “You… you don’t understand because you’re _free_.”

He lingers on the last word, the sentiment that seemed impossible to articulate the other night.

“The reason I say these mean things sometimes isn’t to hurt you. I’m envious and angry,” he says. It’s painful, and it feels like he’s tearing the words out of his insides as he says them to her, but he feels like he owes her the truth, especially after all of the shit. “And I don’t know what to do about how I feel. I just feel… I…”

Sana leans in towards him, encouraging him to talk.

“I…” his words fade away, and all of the sudden he is moving closer, and then his lips press against hers. It could’ve been for a second or a minute or maybe an hour, because Sana’s ability to think utterly shuts down in shock.

He pulls back and her lips part, stunned, but no words come out.

And then she begins to cry, emotions and then tears welling up like a tidal wave within her that she has no hope of stopping.

“Sana? Sana?” Jihoon says in alarm, and tries to touch her but she recoils.

“How can you do this to me, Jihoon-ah?” she says between tears. “How can you say some of the things that you do and then just… _kiss_ me? What the hell am I supposed to make of that? I don’t understand you.”

“Sana, I just don’t know how… I’m stressed out. And I don’t know how to say what I feel so I take it out on other people. I don’t know how to... I…”

He trails off. Her glare feels like it’s cutting through him.

“Stop pretending to be a victim, Jihoon,” she says, fingers curling into the blanket below her. “You’re frustrated because you don’t know what to say to me, okay, but does that give you any right to be scathing or mean? Why should I have to carry that burden for you? I didn’t _make_ you feel anything.”

But she did. She did _make_ him feel something.

“If you had just been nice to me and not a jerk then I would’ve said yes,” she says. She looks down at her knees and then up at him, and there’s something so vulnerable in the way that she’s looking at him. “But when you say… when you think of me like I’m…”

A sourness mediates the blooming feeling of hope in his chest.

“Sana, don’t lie to me. Don’t say that just to make me feel worse.”

“For fucks sake, Jihoon-ah, I’m not lying,” she says in exasperated incredulity. “Why do you put your own self-doubt on me? I’m not out to get you. I don’t delight in making anyone feel worse about themselves.”

_...like you do._

She doesn't say it, but the implication is hard to miss.

“I don’t want to make you feel worse about yourself. Ultimately, I… I…” he wavers, wringing his hands together. “God, why’s it so hard to admit?” He mutters, halfway to her and halfway to himself. “I was intimidated, okay? Is that what you want to hear? I was intimidated, and scared, because the way I feel towards you is all that and more. And you were so sweet towards me and I thought you could never… Never…” He exhales heavily. “It would never go both ways. And so I was mad because of that, at myself, and at you.”

//

He’d left before finding any sort of resolution that night, ironically the thing he’d gone there to get. Jihyo had knocked on the door and Sana had said _Woozi, I think you need to leave_ , a sentence that echoed in his head a thousand times as he tried to understand what she’d meant by that. Why she hadn’t used his real name. Why she had sounded so exhausted. Why she hadn’t looked at him at all as he was leaving.

He sends her a song to apologize, for all of the shit. No note. Just the sound file in a message. It starts as a bright, slow melody and fades into melancholy minor chords

_Title: Flying_

_I’m dreaming of you_

_Being with you is a cloudy summer day_  
_Sun shining through my fingertips_  
_The taste of sweet strawberries_  
_Breeze lifting me away_

_Being with me is a cold winter morning_  
_Wind pulling your hair_  
_Numb fingers_  
_Blurry and grey_

_You’re right_  
_I’m sorry_  
_I miss you_  
_But I hope you don’t miss me too_

His voice cracks on the end. He leaves it in.

//

He doesn’t see her for another month.

He’s at a café where he likes to work sometimes. He wears a hat so that no one recognizes him, but Sana sees him anyway; she’s there with Tzuyu and Jihyo.

“Jihoon-ah,” he hears a voice that has been ringing in his memories for the last month. He’s been writing a lot of sad songs lately; it's haunted him.

He looks up and it’s Sana standing before him, a conflicted look on her face, coffee in hand.

“Sana, h-how are you?” he stumbles over his words, shutting his computer. She looks at him warily.

“Good. Tired. But still.”

“You look it. Good, I mean. Not tired.” He catches himself, and laughs at his own misspeaking. Sana’s laugh is a soft echo along with him. It’s probably more social grace than amusement, he thinks.

Jihyo and Tzuyu get her attention but she waves them away. So she’ll still talk to him. The thought buoys him.

“I liked your song,” she says. Exactly two of his songs came out since they last spoke, but he knows she’s not talking about either one of those.

“Thanks,” he replies. “It’s all still true.”

The summer’s day part is, at least. But a selfish part of him hopes that she’ll forgive him.


End file.
